The legislation defines a "no-go zone" as a "a contiguous geographical area consisting of public space or privately owned public space where community organizing efforts systematically intimidate or exclude the general public or public workers from entering or being present within the area."

A bill in response to a non-existent phenomenon (that's an oxymoron) in a foreign country.

Lynn said that state Sen. Bill Ketron, who sponsored the Senate version of the bill, "saw it with his own eyes" during a visit to Europe.

Bill Ketron probably saw not much more than the tour bus bathroom during that visit to Europe. I seriously doubt he took the RER out to Saint-Denis when the bus stopped at the Eiffel Tower.

The House passed a bill authorizing construction of the pipeline earlier this month by a vote of 270-152, mostly along party lines. The Senate passed the measure 62 to 36 in January. The bill was one of the first introduced as the Republican-controlled Congress was being sworn in last month.

A reader sends a link to an Orlando Business Journal article saying that Ruby Tuesday is considering relocating its corporate HQ to Orlando. According to the article, Orlando city council yesterday approved $315,000 in state and local incentives for the move.

The article says they are also looking at Knoxville or Atlanta. Any relocation would be a huge blow to downtown Maryville.

As noted here previously, Ruby Tuesday hired a former Darden exec as their new CEO a few years ago. Darden HQ is located in Orlando.

The documentary Standardized: Lies, Money, and Civil Rights: How Testing is Ruining Public Education, the brainchild of producer and former teacher Daniel Hornberger, is a powerful artistic translation of this both cerebral and passionate battle. It stars real-life parents, teachers and experts from across this country testifying as to how schools are being destroyed by this federal education mandate—the Obama Administration’s answer to predecessor George W. Bush’s No Child Left Behind Act. The groundswell of protest from parents and teachers is quickly reaching critical mass, causing politicians who had previously dismissed critics of the reform to reconsider their positions. In New York, State Education Commissioner John King faces a vote of “no confidence” by the teachers’ unions for implementing the program. Standardized’s cinematic examination of the effects of high-stakes standardized testing on schoolchildren and the multi-billion-dollar industry perpetuating it comes as the battle here on Long Island is really heating up.

The inspiration for the film comes from the book Making the Grade, by author Todd Farley, who spent his career working in the standardized testing industry and confirmed Hornberger’s suspicions that high-stakes testing not only stifles the creativity of teachers and is harmful to students, but it’s ultimately fraudulent, too.

Folks, he probably wrote this dreck on his work computer on the taxpayer's dime too.

Science fiction writer Robert Heinlein, in his famous novel Starship Troopers, envisioned a society where voters, too, had to demonstrate their patriotism before being allowed to vote. In his fictional society, the right to vote came only after some kind of dangerous public service — in the military, as a volunteer in dangerous medical experiments, or in other ways that demonstrated a willingness to sacrifice personally for the common good. The thought was that such voters would be more careful, and less selfish, in their voting.

So when the five-day wonder of questioning Barack Obama's patriotism is over, perhaps we should address another question: How patriotic is the electorate? And how long can we survive as a nation if the answer is "not very"? And we should proceed from there

More about Heinlein: he espoused a "social credit" philosophy to a great degree. Social credit thinkers wanted to apply engineering principles to society at large. If you didn't say "Oh, shit," then just assume that classic social credit thinkers like C.H. Douglas didn't blink an eye at things like "the right people having children" and "pure human races." And, Douglas was a rabid anti-Semite who thought Jews were keen on communism because of their proclivity to abstract thought.

Ah, yes. Another fun bit of Reynold's logorrhea to finish off your day. Why on earth such a vaunted individualist and libertarian "thinker" gives a fig about the survival of a nation is humorous in one sense, but telling in another....

Cohen’s concerns start with the way Tennessee Promise was funded — by taking millions of dollars in reserves from the lottery-funded Hope program. Stripping the money from Hope leaves those scholarships with no room for growth and eventually will kill the program, said Cohen, who as a state senator shepherded the legislation paving the way for the Tennessee Lottery and the Hope program.

What’s more, Cohen argues, Tennessee Promise essentially punishes students who have made decent grades by taking scholarship money away from Hope and giving it to students who haven’t distinguished themselves academically and who are unlikely to complete their degree.

Yep, Haslam has now cut Hope funding to my younger student with the 4.0 pretty much the same way he did to my older student with the 4.0--although he cut my older student's Hope funding completely after seven semesters, when he established that 120 hour cap three years back Then gave her "merit" scholarship to students among whom 47% were washing out academically as freshmen.

And what Cohen didn't say is that tuition costs at TN public colleges have risen so rapidly since the advent of Hope scholarships a decade ago, the Hope wasn't enough help even before Haslam cut proceeds to freshman and sophomores this year.

Spot on, Rep. Cohen. You conceived of the Hope as a merit scholarship. Don't let up.

That's essentially what some Oklahoma lawmakers aimed to do this week. You may have read about it: An education committee in my home state -- a place with plenty of historical blemishes and oodles of modern-day screw-ups -- actually approved a bill that would rewrite advanced placement U.S. History classes, potentially eliminating them. The cause? They paint America in too negative a light.

A special enrollment period will begin March 15 and end April 30 to help consumers avoid tax penalties for not obtaining health insurance coverage this year, Andrew Slavitt, principal deputy administrator at CMS, said during a news briefing Friday.

To qualify for the exemption, people will need to self-attest that they had to pay a penalty for not having coverage in 2014, they cannot be currently enrolled in a plan on HealthCare.gov, and claim that they only found out they were going to have to pay a tax penalty when they filed their income tax forms. CMS had no estimates on how many people fall into this group.

This legislation would create a new category of corporate legal entity known as a "for-profit benefit corporation," also known as a "public benefit corporation." Companies registering under this designation state in their articles of incorporation a purpose of public social and/or environmental benefit. The law then allows the board and officers to prioritize the social and/or environmental benefits along with or superior to the traditional fiduciary duty to maximize profits for shareholders.

As written, the legislation defines social and/or environmental benefits as (A) Providing low-income or underserved individuals or communities with beneficial products or services; (B) Promoting economic opportunity for individuals or communities beyond the creation of jobs in the normal course of business; (C) Protecting or restoring the environment; (D) Improving human health; (E) Promoting the arts, sciences, or advancement of knowledge; (F) Increasing the flow of capital to entities with a purpose to benefit society or the environment; and (G) Conferring any other particular benefit on society or the environment.

The law provides for a company to appoint a benefits director (required for publicly traded companies) and also to designate a benefits officer. The company must prepare an annual benefits report measuring the public benefit provided against an independent third-party standard according to the purpose stated in its articles of incorporation and bylaws.

The benefit corporation designation does not provide any special tax benefit or treatment. The IRS treats the company the same as a C corporation and S corporation designation is allowed.

Nationally, more than 20 states have passed public benefit corporation laws, including Arkansas, California, Colorado, Delaware, Florida, Hawaii, Illinois, Louisiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, Nevada, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, West Virginia and the District of Columbia.

The national movement is spearheaded by B-Lab, a Pennsylvania non-profit that has developed model legislation and works with states seeking to pass benefit corporation legislation. The company is also the leading provider of independent third-party standards by which benefit corporations are measured.

B-Lab also works with companies seeking to become "Certified B-Corps" by meeting certain social responsibility standards. This creates some confusion, because a "Certified B-Corp" does not have to be a registered benefit corporation, and a registered benefit corporation is not required to be "certified" beyond stating their purpose and filing annual benefit reports measuring their performance.

A couple of notable registered public benefit corporations are Patagonia (California) and King Arthur Flour (Vermont). Ben and Jerry's is an example of a B-Lab "Certified B-Corp" that is not a registered benefits corporation (they are a wholly-owned subsidiary of Unilever).

There is some controversy as to whether benefit corporation legislation is needed, because companies can simply declare their intentions to provide a public benefit. Corporate legal experts, however, argue that courts traditionally fall back to a corporation's primary fiduciary duty to maximize shareholder profits, and that public benefit corporation status provides flexibility and legal protections for officers and directors of companies committed to being socially responsible as well as profitable.

Anyway, the proposed Tennessee legislation appears to have bipartisan support, judging from its sponsors. It will hopefully pass and put socially responsible companies in a better position to value people above profits.

According to the google, an alternative is calcium chloride, which will work down to 15 below. But, it can be harmful to pets. Same for magnesium chloride.

It's probably best to keep you pet away from treated streets and sidewalks, even if it's just salt or if you don't know. If that's not practical, you should wipe or rinse your puppy's paws when you come inside.

Perhaps a better alternative for pet owners is a product called Safe Paw. It claims to be 100% pet safe, works down to 2 degrees below, and is available at home improvement and hardware stores. (Note: There are a bunch of bad reviews on Amazon saying it doesn't really work.)

Another possibility is Morton Safe-T Pet ice melt, but it only works down to 10 degrees. (It also has some bad reviews on Amazon, and some people say both products can damage concrete.)

The forecast says we will be back up in the 30s by tomorrow, so I can probably wait. But I might get some pet safe ice melt to have around for the next time.

We were watching a Seinfeld episode where Jerry and George walk in to a meeting with NBC executives to pitch their "show about nothing."

The Mrs. laughed and said "that brings back memories," because when we started our little company 20 years ago, we had some similar core principles. Three actually.

Me: Yeah, "We don't care," right? (As in, You don't want to buy our software do you? Because we don't care. We think this is how it should be done. We hope you agree and and get on board. Or not. Whatever.)

Her: Oh yeah. And don't forget "James Brown." (As in, we played "Cold Sweat" really loud on the car stereo every time we drove up to some place for a pitch meeting.)

Me: And do you remember the corollary to "we don't care?"

Her. "We're the pros from Dover*."

Me. Hahahaha. Exactly. This is why I married you.

(*As in, we came in, made stuff happen, and got the job done in time for cocktails. Bonus points to anyone who remembers the movie reference.)

The Big Ears schedule was announced today, plus news of three more artists added to the lineup. Weekend passes are on sale now, daily tickets go on sale this Friday, February 20 at 12pm ET.

The eclectic three-day festival of unique concert performances, along with "installations, exhibitions, film screenings, interactive workshops, informative talks, surprise collaborations, and unexpected connections" kicks off Friday, March 27th at 5:30 PM at the Knoxville Museum of Art.

Event venues include the Tennessee Theatre, the Bijou Theatre, the Square Room, the Knoxville Museum of Art, and the Standard.

Big Ears is a critically acclaimed event that brings international attention to Knoxville and its lively arts scene. It's a labor of love for the creator, our friend and Knoxville's own Ashley Capps of AC Entertainment.